1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to heating and combustion, in particular, to processes and apparatuses for heating and combusting furnace exhaust gases.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Exhaust gases from smokestacks of industrial furnaces are a major source of air pollution. Due to the present national concern about air pollution, the U.S. Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency (hereinafter EPA). This agency has promulgated various regulations governing the permissible industrial emissions into the atmosphere. Most states have established similar agencies which have promulgated identical or more stringent regulations. For example, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has put into effect Title 401, K.A.R. chap. 3:060 (3) (a) 1, which states that the emission of particulate matter into the open air must not exceed 40% opacity, i.e., the emission must not block more than 40% of the light passing through it. Many industrial furnaces in Kentucky are not in compliance with this regulation. Some attempts to clean up or otherwise limit the emissions of particulate matter have been unsatisfactory because of the nature of the heating processes and the combustion apparatuses utilized in the industrial furnaces. Thus, there is need for new combustion apparatuses capable of carrying out heating processes without causing violation of regulations limiting industrial furnace emissions.
Although violations of regulations limiting industrial furnace emissions have been reduced by inserting an afterburner in the smokestack in order to combust the exhaust gases containing hydrocarbons, the use of such an afterburner is expensive an inefficient.
Exemplary prior art industrial furnaces for baking carbon products are shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,678,205 and 4,128,394. However, these patents do not disclose any attempts to exhaust only non-polluting compounds into the outside atmosphere either with or without the use of an afterburner.